Terraform is great but it’s not perfect. In fact, there are some critical “buts” that need to be addressed to elevate and accelerate its performance and impact.  

Terraform is great, but…

…it requires a significant cognitive load

Time spent learning how to use Terraform is more time spent not developing, not building the next customer answer, not innovating. Additionally, Terraform requires inputs—how are those captured, shared, and managed? It’s hard enough to learn how to use but also where to find the inputs (e.g. Cloud environments, instance types, networks, etc.). 

If you have lots of dev teams then you also have lots of people at varying stages of Terraform learning and expertise. Abstracting away cloud infrastructure complexities through automation should be applied to Terraform, just like AWS, vCenter, or Ansible before it.  

The reason to adopt and use new technology is to improve the process in some way, and the faster you can use sit with the least amount of knowledge required the better.  

So what’s the answer? Build automation, orchestration, and security directly into a Terraform plan to decrease errors, accelerate timelines, and vastly reduce learning curves. 

…it’s not always easy to share what works across the organization so others can benefit. 

Terraform plans and exciting use cases rarely get shared across the organization. Siloed dev teams form in isolation, minimizing the impact of better ways, new processes, or optimized configurations. Keeping a lid on the cool, new, and exciting ways your people are using Terraform only minimizes the potential impact. 

Stop inventing and re-inventing the wheel. Harness innovation, breakthroughs, and efficient orchestration by sharing with others across the organization so everyone benefits. How much faster can the team move when everyone is able to rapidly leverage what works? 

…is woefully lacking in governance, visibility, and reporting. 

Your finance/FinOps team is continuously seeking an accurate view of infrastructure consumption, be that on-prem, private, or public clouds. Since Terraform is an open-source tool it’s easy for an individual or a specific team to use as they see fit. As a result, the same groups often provision and use infrastructure outside of normal channels (e.g. purchase direction via credit card). And when that happens, there is no hope for visibility, compliance, cost control, security, or governance. It’s shadow IT, even when done with the best of intentions. Any developer or group not using org-approved resources is creating blind spots. Secure? Not sure. Visible? Not likely. Automated? Maybe. 

A management and cloud operations framework allows you to standardize Terraform plans, automate and orchestrate processes, build security into plans, and gain visibility, tracking, and reporting on Terraform use of infrastructure across the organization. 

The Net-Net 

Terraform truly is a great technology, but there are some costly gaps that must be filled, especially in hybrid/multi-cloud environments. While using Terraform in disparate groups throughout the organization has benefits it may also be creating costly issues that diminish the value, increase cost, and slow down innovation. 

Make your Terraform experience better, more efficient, secure, and re-usable so that your whole organization gains the greatest benefits and advantages. No buts about it.

Happy Terraforming!  See how CloudBolt can help. Request a demo.

Admittedly the title is a bit vague, but what I’m specifically referencing is making sense of multi-cloud infrastructure. Cost, Optimization, Automation, Self-Service, Orchestration, Governance, Security, Compliance… and the list continues! Simply stated…organizations today are struggling! As they introduce 2nd and even 3rd cloud options, cost roll-up, multi-cloud automation/orchestration, resource optimization, and reuse become exponentially more difficult! In the most recent CloudBolt Industry Insights Report (CII) 95% of surveyed IT professionals agree they have a real skills deficiency to handle the complexity.

The opportunity in front of cloud-oriented service providers is MASSIVE! Nearly every enterprise is struggling with how to better manage cloud costs and increase visibility across multi-cloud environments, even if they have existing or native tools! MSP & CSP customers are telling you what they want and how (see below)… For the MSPs/CSPs that figure it out, there is a vast majority of organizations seeking to pay a premium to remove cloud complexity!

The Danger of Doing Nothing

In the research mentioned above, 300 MSP/CSP customers shared that 4 out of 5 (80%) of them are “so frustrated with their current MSP that they are actively looking to switch to a new provider in the next 12 months”! This potential churn should be alarming to any cloud-oriented service provider. The people that buy your service and keep you in business are not happy and looking to leave because they are saying they can’t get what they need from you!

But that also means OPPORTUNITY!

Those same customers also told us what they want to be fixed (or why they’re seeking to leave):

What else did we learn from MSP/CSP customers?

Areas customers believe cloud-orient service providers can have a positive impact:

83% agree that it is important for service providers to embrace sustainability.

How much time, effort, and money would you have spent chasing answers to these questions? Luckily, we already have them – and they are available to you for free and without any obligation on your part. Just download your free copy of this important new research and listen to what customers are saying. The MSPs/CSPs who do will win…big. Those who refuse to pay attention do so at their own peril.

And once you clearly understand what companies are saying they want, be sure to talk to CloudBolt about the expanded capabilities you need. We can help you help your customers to orchestrate, optimize, protect, and accelerate multi-cloud results by bringing order to the chaos they are experiencing. Unlock new revenue opportunities with CloudBolt. Learn More

As organizations mature along their hybrid cloud journey, many seek to diversify their clouds and tools to take advantage of best of breed options, reduce vendor lock-in, and allow preferences among different organizational groups. In our recent research, we’ve found that over half of IT leaders believe providing an ability to choose best of breed for specific current functions is why it’s important to diversify beyond a single public cloud provider.

The problems arise when you need to manage, optimize, orchestrate, and automate among a growing set of clouds and tools. Organizations don’t want to travel between multiple consoles just to maintain a stable environment. They don’t want to aggregate cloud spends in spreadsheets utilizing native platform tools. They don’t have the time and resources to build and maintain integrations among all tools so they can automate and orchestrate to be more efficient. Our research shows 6% have workloads only hosted in a single cloud. 80% have up to 50% of their workloads hosted in a multi-cloud environment.

Organizations want to use Amazon Web Services (AWS) but they also want to use Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud Platform (GCP). They want to use Ansible, Terraform, Kubernetes and whatever comes next! They want to seamlessly switch between Cloud Management Platform (CMPs) and even deploy one to replace another.

Customer aspirations have out-paced technology…. Until now!

CloudBolt Software announces its Summer ’21 release today featuring new capabilities to its award-wining cloud management, cost management, and codeless integration solutions. These include comprehensive GCP support, rich multi-cloud budgeting and cost trending insights, and a robust API framework for greater automation flexibility. We also added support for even more IT automation tools (e.g., VMware vRealize Automation (vRA) Cloud, ServiceNow, Ansible Tower, etc.) to help enterprises reduce custom integration headaches as they invest in more tools for hybrid cloud.

What is in each release and how does it help in a multi-cloud/tool world?

Cloud cost management enhancements

New cost optimization for GCP – CloudBolt’s cost management platform now supports GCP, building on the product’s richness for AWS, Azure, and VMware. As the only vendor employing automation for cost control, CloudBolt can now continuously notify FinOps of real-time cost saving opportunities, while providing a single pane of glass for public cloud optimization across all the major hyperscalers.

New budgeting capabilities for FinOps teams – Summer ‘21 new capabilities make FinOps teams even more effective across all hyperscale environments. This includes the ability to create monthly, quarterly, and annual budgets; understand historical cost trends to avoid surprise cloud bills; real-time alerts when spend thresholds are reached; and improved currency conversion to support global needs. Also, the new currency conversion feature helps global enterprises to convert currencies using the approved currency ratios for simplified invoicing and financial transparency.

Watch CSMP Summer Release ’21 Highlights Video – Read CSMP Release Notes

Cloud management platform enhancements – CMP 9.4.6

Enhanced GCP management and visibility – Summer ’21 provides ITOps team with a single place for all things Google (e.g., Google servers, Google Storage Cloud, etc.). This includes comprehensive visibility into your GCP servers (e.g., CPU, memory, etc.); ease of tagging of GCP resources (e.g. by groups, users) for better monitoring and visibility; and improved blueprints for faster self-service of Google Storage Cloud. 

New API v3 framework for improved flexibility – Summer ’21 introduces a new API v3 framework for CloudBolt enabling even greater automation flexibility for ITOps and DevOps teams. This approach simplifies resource provisioning and management using CloudBolt API integration with a third-party system such as ServiceNow, Terraform, etc.

Enhanced multi-tenancy support – CloudBolt now supports enhanced multi-tenancy, enabling MSPs and global enterprises, in particular, to better control and manage their hybrid cloud across different customers, regions, and user groups.

Watch CMP Summer Release ’21 Highlights Video – Read CMP Release Notes

Codeless integration enhancements – OneFuse v1.4

New codeless integration support—OneFuse v1.4 brings two new downstream integration modules to popular IT services: Microsoft IPAM, and F5 BIG-IP. It also offers new platform support for Ansible, ServiceNow, VMware vRA Cloud, and CloudBolt CMP, significantly improving integrations to and from these management platforms.

New pluggable modules—In prior versions of OneFuse, you had to update the entire application to add new integrations or support for new platforms. In OneFuse v1.4, we introduce ‘Pluggable Modules’ where you can easily add or update existing modules without an upgrade. This saves customer time and risk by avoiding an entire application upgrade.

Watch OneFuse Summer Release ’21 Highlights Video – Read OneFuse Release Notes

We’re here to help you anywhere on your hybrid and multi-cloud journey. Request a demo today.